Political Venue: The History of RFK Stadium, Part Eight

Not getting any younger

Eventually we get to the part where the Redskins played football in RFK for decades. Then left. Curly R's special series on the history of RFK Stadium concludes.

Part One: Faded Glory
Part Two: Government Intervention
Part Three: Football and Race
Part Four: A Complex Relationship
Part Five: Ernie Davis, Bobby Mitchell and Ron Hatcher
Part Six: Palace Intrigue
Part Seven: The Stadium Becomes Legend
Part Eight: Coda
References

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Responding to requests for specific RFK memories, many polled for this article did not even cite football games. RFK Stadium held other sporting matches, including spring training baseball and international soccer. Dozens of big names played concerts in RFK, including the Beatles, the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd, the Allman Brothers, Aerosmith, Yes, Bruce Springsteen, Madonna, U2 and The Who, among others.

Today, RFK is in bad shape. The concrete is crumbling, ceilings are sagging and the stadium's only regular tenant, Major League Soccer's DC United, is complaining. One day soon, DC United will be in their own soccer-only stadium, leaving RFK empty once again.

And then what will happen to RFK? Well probably nothing in the near term. After spending six hundred and ten million dollars on a municipal stadium for the Washington Nationals baseball team, there is not much appetite in the District for a new stadium built on spec, with no guaranteed tenant.

Redskins fans wonder why the team cannot simply move back to that site. FedEx Field is old before its time and rumors have persisted for years that while Prince George's County in Maryland is trying to negotiate back the land rights to the stadium site, the District is also negotiating to get the team back right on the RFK Stadium site.

Why can't it happen? Politics. Logistics.

The Redskins have an agreement with Prince George's County to stay in the county until at least 2027, another sixteen years. Both parties, of course, could agree to nullify that contract. Meanwhile, over in the District, Dan Snyder is far too shrewd to agree to any stadium deal that does not involve him owning everything from the dirt up. That means the federal government, which owns the entire stadium site, would have to transfer the land to the District, which would then have to sell it to Dan. Of course these transactions would come with years of haggling, posturing and environmental studies.

The adjacent campus of the defunct DC General Hospital has been in development limbo for a decade, with plans for a riverwalk-style mixed use community drifting aimlessly. No enterprise redevelopment of RFK and the surrounding parcels would be permitted without attached development requirements for this area, similar to what Verizon Center did for Chinatown and what Nationals Stadium is trying to do for the Navy Yard. Who would pay for what and what guarantees could be extracted for community development add to the complexity of any possible deals.

What do Redskins fans really want? What they already had, what they miss: RFK Stadium.

They want Dan Snyder, the famous deal maker, to get it done, to tear down RFK and rebuild it as a modern stadium: Bigger, with the same shape and allure and all the amenities of modern stadiums. Redskins fans want to see that icon back on the horizon from Interstate 295, coming down East Capitol Street, coming off Metro. Redskins fans will accede to Dan Snyder's demands for luxury suites and all the necessities of making money in the modern NFL, as long as they get their beloved RFK back. Call it Son of RFK.

In the end, all Redskins fans have is memories, sometimes hazy ones, and the oral tradition of RFK Stadium to pass down to the next generation.

In our dreams, we all sit under a giant Budweiser clock.


This concludes Curly R's special series on the history of RFK Stadium, I hope you have enjoyed it. Tomorrow we will publish our list of references used for this series.



RFK Stadium: Dudley Brooks / Washington Post photo from here via here.

Political Venue: The History of RFK Stadium, Part Seven

Home cooking

Naming the stadium after Bobby Kennedy was an inside baseball affair, bureaucratic infighting at its best. The name change also signaled a change in the fortunes of a franchise. Curly R's special series on the history of RFK Stadium continues.

Part One: Faded Glory
Part Two: Government Intervention
Part Three: Football and Race
Part Four: A Complex Relationship
Part Five: Ernie Davis, Bobby Mitchell and Ron Hatcher
Part Six: Palace Intrigue
Part Seven: The Stadium Becomes Legend
Part Eight: Friday
References

=====

That first season in the newly renamed RFK Stadium, 1969, serves as a bridge to what fans of a certain age think of as the start of the modern era of Redskins football. Vince Lombardi had come to Washington as head coach. Larry Brown, Pat Fischer, Chris Hanburger, Sam Huff, Sonny Jurgenson, Brig Owens and Charley Taylor were all on a team that suffered fewer losses than any Redskins team in fourteen years. RFK sold out every game. Within two years, Billy Kiilmer, Jack Pardee and Richie Petitbon would be on the team that made it to Super Bowl VII, eventually losing to the only undefeated NFL team of all time, the 1972 Miami Dolphins.

Many of the traditions we took for granted in the 1980s and 1990s were established in this period: Tailgates in Lots 7 and 8 by the river, walking the promenade of vendors from Metro to RFK's front door, bouncing the north side bleachers, asking the guy with the portable radio what just happened because the sound system was always so awful at RFK.

And that is part of what made RFK so great as a football venue, so appropriate for those great Redskins teams of the 70s, 80s and 90s; it was a downscale facility in upscale town. The team and the stadium never seemed to take themselves too seriously even when no city takes itself more seriously than Washington, DC.

The design of the stadium itself became a character in the drama of Redskins football. From above, RFK is a perfect circle, but viewed from the edge, as you would on approach from parking lots or the Metro, the cantilevered roof has curves, like a 1960s calendar girl laying on her side, a lipstick kiss over the month of September. Inside the halls were cavernous, the food basic and the beer cold. Rowdiness of the type seen commonly at FedEx Field today would not ever come to RFK Stadium.

Built for use as a baseball or football venue, the north bleachers swung in and out on an arc rail to clear the outfield. Once the Senators abandoned RFK for good following the 1971 baseball season, the bleachers stayed in place, even though they were not meant as permanent seating. Their attachment to a rail assembly and not the ground itself made them less stable than permanent bleachers, and fans figured out early when things were going well that bouncing in unison would yield a resonant frequency, the visual effect and resulting noise were somewhat startling and lent to the home field advantage.

Looking up, the inward bow of the cantilevered roof was perfectly angled to bounce reflected sound from the stands directly below onto the field, making the venue much louder for the visitors than an otherwise open air stadium of fifty-six thousand might be. This specific design is cited by many Redskins fans as a key weakness of FedEx Field; despite being more than thirty thousand seats larger, all noise generated in the new stadium simply escapes into the open air above. And the cantilevered roof of RFK gaps over the upper deck, offering those in the last row views outside the stadium of the surrounding area, including the US Capitol.

Small and quirky and without a bad seat in the house, Redskins fans wish it never had to end for RFK.


Political Venue: The History of RFK Stadium concludes tomorrow with part eight, Coda.



RFK Stadium: Dudley Brooks / Washington Post photo from here via here.

Political Venue: The History of RFK Stadium, Part Six

LBJ Stadium?

Team owner George Preston Marshall could hold out no longer, black players were coming to the Redskins, but who expected Ernie Davis and Bobby Mitchell? Curly R's special series on the history of RFK Stadium continues.

Part One: Faded Glory
Part Two: Government Intervention
Part Three: Football and Race
Part Four: A Complex Relationship
Part Five: Ernie Davis, Bobby Mitchell and Ron Hatcher
Part Six: Palace Intrigue
Part Seven: Thursday
Part Eight: Friday
References

=====

There is evidence the Kennedy administration maintained contact with the Redskins even after the advent of black players on the team in December 1961. In January of 1962, players and coaches involved in the new collegiate US Bowl were treated to a tour of FBI headquarters and met briefly with Attorney General Robert Kennedy. Among the guests for this event: Redskins head coach Bill McPeak, the coach of the East squad, and newly signed Redskins rookie Ron Hatcher, the first black player to sign with the team. Later, in December 1963, Redskins players would haul presents at a Christmas benefit for needy kids attended by Bobby Kennedy.

Between these two events, the Redskins would improve, playing their best football in five years, averaging forty-one thousand attendance per game and a 5-7-2 record in 1962. Despite falling to 3-11 in 1963, attendance at DC Stadium continued to climb, up to forty-five thousand.

It was in this time that the legacy of Interior Secretary Stewart Udall was established: The man that forced final integration of the NFL using the power of the federal government to force private enterprise to adopt policies of equality through the use, or withholding, of public facilities. Secretary Udall's story was not done here though, he and DC Stadium would come together once more in history.

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After 1963, integration faded as a football issue in Washington, DC. Between 1964 and 1968, many players that would bridge the Redskins from the integration period into the modern era were brought to the team: Bobby Mitchell, Sonny Jurgenson, Sam Huff, Charley Taylor, Paul Krause, Len Hauss, Chris Hanburger. Attendance continued to rise at DC Stadium: Nearly forty-nine thousand per game in 1964; nearly fifty thousand in 1965 and 1966; cresting fifty thousand in 1967 and 1968, the year the Redskins streak of sellout games officially started, the streak is still alive today at over 350 games.

In June of 1968, Bobby Kennedy, then a Democratic Senator from New York, was assassinated in Los Angeles, thrusting the Redskins back into a political fray.

Following the assassination of his brother the president in November 1963, Bobby had stayed on as Attorney General for nine months before resigning to run for Senator in New York. As President, John Kennedy was succeeded by his Vice President, Lyndon Johnson. Tensions between Johnson and the Kennedys were legend. Many of the Kennedy hands resigned before the end of President Johnson's abbreviated term, or were not reappointed when Johnson won the presidential election of 1964.

One Kennedy appointee that did stay through the full Johnson administration was Interior Secretary Stewart Udall. A staunch Kennedy ally, Udall administered his department capably while defending it from political encroachment by a famously strong-willed and self-congratulatory Johnson.

It was during Johnson's full term in office that discussions began on the possibility of renaming DC Stadium in honor of someone, someone worth honoring. President Johnson seemed to think, with no trace of irony that he was the best candidate. The stadium, as the president's thinking went, could be renamed LBJ Stadium, an enduring monument to his political legacy.

Interior Secretary Udall and his coterie of former Kennedy aides, already enduring a difficult relationship with President Johnson, were not pleased with this idea and conspired to prevent the president from naming his own Taj Mahal. Examining laws governing naming of facilities on national parkland, Interior staffers discovered that the Secretary had full naming authority for such facilities, and did not require presidential approval or direction.

Thus did Interior stall any action on the renaming of DC Stadium until the last possible moment, holding the president at bay. Finally, on Saturday January 18, 1969, with two days left in Johnson's presidential term, Udall signed an order to rename DC Stadium after his friend and fellow civil rights activist, Robert Francis Kennedy. DC Stadium would now forever be known as RFK Stadium.

President Johnson was caught by surprise. Secretary Udall's staff had leaked the story to the press with just enough lead time to make reversing the event a political impossibility for the president in his final forty-eight hours in office. Coming just seven months after his assassination, it was the first major monument to the legacy of Bobby Kennedy's accomplishments as a politician.

So no, if you thought DC Stadium was renamed RFK Stadium by the Redskins to honor the man for whom they had developed a grudging respect during the difficult period leading up to integration, you would be wrong. Or if you thought the District, a predominantly black city, renamed the stadium in honor of Bobby Kennedy's fight for racial equality for all, well you would be wrong there too.

Nope, the stadium that became a hallowed football ground to generations of Redskins fans got its name almost arbitrarily, less to honor the namesake than to piss off his rival.


Political Venue: The History of RFK Stadium continues tomorrow with part seven, The Stadium Becomes Legend.



RFK Stadium: Dudley Brooks / Washington Post photo from here via here.

Political Venue: The History of RFK Stadium, Part Five

When Bobby Mitchell came

After deciding to make the Redskins a new home in DC, the government decided to get in George Preston Marshall's business. One way or another, a black player was coming to this team. Curly R's special series on the history of RFK Stadium continues.

Part One: Faded Glory
Part Two: Government Intervention
Part Three: Football and Race
Part Four: A Complex Relationship
Part Five: Ernie Davis, Bobby Mitchell and Ron Hatcher
Part Six: Wednesday
Part Seven: Thursday
Part Eight: Friday
References

=====

The 1961 NFL season opened for the Redskins with two games on the road before their first game in their new home, the price tag of which had risen to twenty-four million dollars. When Sunday 1 October 1961 finally rolled around, the Redskins lost to the New York Giants in a game that featured Washington scoring three touchdowns in the first quarter behind rookie quarterback Norm Snead to take a commanding 21-7 lead. The Redskins would not score again as New York quarterback YA Tittle led the Giants to seventeen unanswered points.

More than thirty-seven thousand people attended the game, sixteen thousand more than had attended either the 1960 season opener or closer.

Media opinion of the new stadium itself was mixed; DC Stadium was the first of a new breed of stadiums and most viewed it somewhat as a curiosity; its nonstandard lines were off-putting to some and the reflection of noise back from the cantilevered roof was instantly noticeable to others.

There were others at this inaugural game besides fans and media: the National Association for the Advancement of Colored people. Angry NAACP supporters picketed the stadium over the team's lack of black players, fifteen years as it was after black players came back to the NFL following the 1933 lockout, and nine years after the next to last team had begun using players of any color on its roster.

Still unsatisfied with the team's position on integration, Interior Secretary Stewart Udall pledged publicly following that first game in DC Stadium that he would personally boycott Redskins games as long as the NAACP continued picketing, which was of course by the NAACP's own position until such time as the Redskins signed black players to the active roster.

It was two more long months before the 1962 draft was held, during which time the Redskins went 0-4 in DC Stadium, averaging nine points per game on offense. When the 1962 NFL Draft was finally held on December 4, 1961, the Redskins famously drafted Ernie Davis first overall. Ernie, a Syracuse tailback, was the first black football player ever to win the Heisman Trophy and was highly coveted in both the NFL and AFL. A bidding war for his services was expected to ensue between the two leagues.

As the story goes, the Redskins traded Ernie's rights less than two weeks later to the Cleveland Browns. In a sad twist of fate, Ernie would never play a down in the NFL, he was diagnosed with leukemia in the 1962 offseason and would succumb to the illness a year later in 1963. In exchange for Ernie, the Redskins would receive Bobby Mitchell, a tailback and flanker who would come to revitalize the Redskins franchise, Bobby was elected to the NFL Hall of Fame in 1983 and remained in the Redskins organization altogether for more than forty years.

But before that trade even happened, something else memorable happened following the draft: The Redskins signed their first black player, eighth round pick Ron Hatcher, a tailback out of Michigan State. Ron was not heralded, and certainly would never have garnered the headlines of an Ernie Davis, still he will always be remembered as the first black player signed by the Redskins, the last team to include players of color in its roster. Ron would appear in three games, amassing no plays for no yards in his one year NFL career.

The cynical eye may regard Ron as the exact token black that Bobby Kennedy and Stewart Udall had no interest in seeing.


Political Venue: The History of RFK Stadium continues tomorrow with part six, Palace Intrigue.



RFK Stadium: Dudley Brooks / Washington Post photo from here via here.

Political Venue: The History of RFK Stadium, Part Four

Colored players need not apply

An intractably racist owner, a presidential administration committed to equal rights. The Redskins and the government were on a collision course. Curly R's special series on the history of RFK Stadium continues.

Part One: Faded Glory
Part Two: Government Intervention
Part Three: Football and Race
Part Four: A Complex Relationship
Part Five: Ernie Davis, Bobby Mitchell and Ron Hatcher
Part Six: Wednesday
Part Seven: Thursday
Part Eight: Friday
References

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Washington's rising new multipurpose venue was at the center of a complex federal-local government partnership, one that thirty-five years later would be a factor in thwarting Redskins owner Jack Kent Cooke's efforts to keep the team in the District once RFK was no longer a viable NFL stadium. District of Columbia Stadium would be built on federal parkland, Anacostia Park, a reclaimed spit of land at the far end of East Capitol Street. Managing the stadium and the revenues from its use would be the DC Armory Board, a branch of the DC government created by Congress in 1949 to administer federally owned properties in the District for non-military and commercial uses.

Although the stadium was to be managed by the District, the ultimate authority on its use, or nonuse, was the US Department of the Interior, the federal government entity responsible for administering US parkland resources. Stewart Udall, John Kennedy's Interior Secretary, shared Bobby Kennedy's concern for the Redskins' resistance to integration, and as Interior Secretary, had the authority to back his concern with action.

In March of 1961, as DC Stadium was rising and the Redskins were planning their inaugural season in that new home, Secretary Udall wrote a letter to owner George Preston Marshall, alerting him to certain recent civil rights laws, and the penalties of prosecution for violating them.

Whatever response George and the team offered were not sufficient, for five months later in August of 1961, Secretary Udall wrote a second letter, this one to NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle. This letter was right to the point: Department of Interior would consider using its authority to prevent the Redskins from using DC Stadium if they did not hire black players. And not just any black players, talented black players, ones that would not simply ride the bench as tokens of compliance.

The Redskins owner shot right back, swearing the Redskins had no hiring bias, it was simply that the Redskins had not yet come across the black players they wanted. To bolster his argument that the Redskins did not actually have a no-blacks policy, George publicly displayed interest in Syracuse star tailback Ernie Davis, a player who happened to be black. And the Redskins had the number one overall pick in the upcoming 1962 NFL Draft, to be held in December.

The government relented and approved the Redskins use of DC Stadium for the 1961 football season.


Political Venue: The History of RFK Stadium continues tomorrow with part five, Ernie Davis, Bobby Mitchell and Ron Hatcher.



RFK Stadium: Dudley Brooks / Washington Post photo from here via here.

Political Venue: The History of RFK Stadium, Part Three

Colored players need not apply

With the government already agreeing effectively to bail out the Redskins in the form of a new stadium, all that remained was to work out the details. The absence of black players happened to be one of those details. Curly R's special series on the history of RFK Stadium continues.

Part One: Faded Glory
Part Two: Government Intervention
Part Three: Football and Race
Part Four: A Complex Relationship
Part Five: Ernie Davis, Bobby Mitchell and Ron Hatcher
Part Six: Wednesday
Part Seven: Thursday
References

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While the Redskins were struggling in the present, a famous and influential figure was examining the Redskins past. Senator John F. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, had been elected president in November 1960, upon taking office President Kennedy named his brother Robert, or Bobby, Kennedy as attorney general. Both the president and his brother were vocal proponents of civil rights and racial equality, the president having been in office as a senator during the passage of the first two major civil rights bill in Congress since Reconstruction, in 1957 and 1960.

Bobby Kennedy was personally appalled by the failure of the Redskins to integrate, the team still had not had a black player in George Preston Marshall's entire tenure as owner, dating back twenty-eight years to 1932.

Prior to George joining the fraternity of NFL owners, there had been a handful of black NFL players between 1920 and 1933, most notably Fritz Pollard. At his first meeting as an NFL owner in February 1933, George floated a package of proposals, many of which individually would be seminal in the development of the NFL as a sport of mass appeal: That the league should be split into Divisions, better to host a World Championship game; that the old school 'fat' football should be slimmed down so as to facilitate the passing game; and that the goalposts should be moved to the goal line so as to increase scoring.

George's package also included one unfortunate proposal: That roster spots should be denied, indefinitely, to black players.

The proposal before the owners was approved, with the inclusion of the lockout of black players. The proposal might not have passed were it not for the endorsement of the plan by Chicago Bears owner and coach George Halas; many believe Halas was agreeing to take the bad with the good for the better of the league.

And so the NFL did not have any black players between 1933 and 1946, thirteen long years. By 1952, every team but the Redskins had at least one black player. And nine years later in 1961 the Redskins still were all-white.

But Bobby Kennedy had found a way to exert influence on the team and its headstrong owner: Threaten to take away DC Stadium from the Redskins before they had even played in it.


Political Venue: The History of RFK Stadium continues tomorrow with part four, A Complex Relationship.



RFK Stadium: Dudley Brooks / Washington Post photo from here via here.

Political Venue: The History of RFK Stadium, Part Two

Shovel ready

By the 1960 season, the Washington Redskins had long faded from their heights of the 1930s and 40s, attendance was winding down and the city was rapidly falling out of love with NFL football. Who better to rescue the team than the government? Curly R's special series on the history of RFK Stadium continues.

Part One: Faded Glory
Part Two: Government Intervention
Part Three: Race and Football
Part Four: A Complex Relationship
Part Five: Ernie Davis, Bobby Mitchell and Ron Hatcher
Part Six: Wednesday
Part Seven: Thursday
Part Eight: Friday
References

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With Griffith Field already forty-six years old and no new local stadium projects on the horizon, in June of 1957, US Representative Oren Harris, Democrat of Arkansas, proposed legislation to authorize construction of a fifty thousand seat, municipal stadium in the District of Columbia. Representative Harris was a well known supporter of sports business, also proposing in 1957 that the NFL be granted an antitrust exemption in the style of baseball's, in place since 1922.

By June of 1958 the US Treasury had agreed to guarantee bonds worth up to six million dollars, the principal projected cost of the stadium project. One month later in July President Dwight Eisenhower signed a bill authorizing construction of the stadium into law. The new venue would be called District of Columbia Stadium, or DC Stadium for short. It would be located at the end of East Capitol Street, hard by the Anacostia River.

The first shovel went into the dirt on the site of RFK Stadium in July 1960. What emerged over the next fifteen months was the first of a generation of multiuse, or 'cookie-cutter' stadiums. Round or slightly oblong, with cantilevered roofs and miles on concrete, these venues were designed to accommodate 1960s appetites for both football and baseball, though in the end by modern standards they did both relatively poorly.

Other stadiums that would rise in the decade that followed and look an awful lot like DC Stadium included Shea Stadium (1964), Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium (1965), Busch Stadium (1966), San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium (1967), Three Rivers Stadium (1970), Riverfront Stadium (1970) and Veterans Stadium (1971).

That fall and winter the Redskins would stagger through their 1960 season, finishing 1-9-2. In a move trumping even future owner Dan Snyder's postgame firing of head coach Jim Zorn in January 2010, team owner George Preston Marshall fired head coach Mike Nixon before the team's 38-28 season ending loss to future Redskins quarterback Sonny Jurgenson and the Philadelphia Eagles.

In coach Nixon's place the owner would promote 34 year old Bill McPeak, an assistant under Mike Nixon with no previous head coaching experience.

The Redskins were limping into their new home by the river.


Political Venue: The History of RFK Stadium continues tomorrow with part three, Football and Race.



RFK Stadium: Dudley Brooks / Washington Post photo from here via here.

Political Venue: The History of RFK Stadium, Part One

What came before

Robert F. Kennedy Stadium, former home of the Washington Redskins, celebrated its fiftieth birthday in 2011, on October 1st. Fifteen years gone are the stadium's football days of tailgates, bouncing bleachers, noise and home field advantage. Today RFK sits, an aging memorial to past glory, slowly decaying by the Anacostia River, still looking down East Capitol Street toward Capitol Hill and the government that gave birth to it, then nearly took it away.

Part One: Faded Glory
Part Two: Government Intervention
Part Three: Race and Football
Part Four: A Complex Relationship
Part Five: Ernie Davis, Bobby Mitchell and Ron Hatcher
Part Six: Wednesday
Part Seven: Thursday
Part Eight: Friday
References

=====

When quarterback Ralph Guglielmi and the Redskins jogged off the field for the last time to end the 1960 season, a 38-28 loss to Sonny Jurgenson and the Philadelphia Eagles, the once-proud Washington NFL franchise was in complete freefall. The team had won one game that season, and a total of four over the two season tenure of head coach Mike Nixon.

Season ticket subscriptions had been below ten thousand for three years and Griffith Stadium, the twenty-five thousand seat baseball stadium the Redskins had called home since moving to Washington in 1937, was showing every bit of its fifty years of continuous service.

Much as it must seem a generation ago to today's fans that the Redskins were a feared team in the 1980s and early 1990s, so it must have felt to those fans in 1960 about the dominant teams of the 1930s and 1940s, when Slinging Sammy Baugh and the Redskins appeared in six NFL Championships in a ten year span. The Redskins had fallen on hard times.

The horizon was bright though. Washington had the number two overall pick in the 1961 draft, and were set to move into their new, fifty thousand seat, federally funded municipal stadium just down the street from the US Capitol for the 1961 season.

But before the field that would later be known as RFK Stadium could become the new home of the Redskins, before it could assume its place of honor in the hearts of Redskins fans and be iconic in the NFL community by its name alone, the Redskins would be forced to confront the modern realities of racial integration, risk losing the stadium altogether, and navigate a playing field as political as the city of Washington itself.

In the end the Redskins would integrate, the last NFL team to do so, and be rewarded immediately with a future Hall of Fame player. Later the team would be forever linked by tragedy with the man most responsible for the team's racial integration.

This is the story of RFK Stadium.


Political Venue: The History of RFK Stadium continues tomorrow with part two, Government Intervention.



RFK Stadium: Dudley Brooks / Washington Post photo from here via here.

Coming Tomorrow: The History of RFK

Sunday best

Last Saturday, a Washington milestone passed: The fiftieth anniversary of the opening of RFK Stadium. It was precisely fifty years ago, 1 October of 1961, that the Redskins played their first game in what was then known as DC Stadium. The Redskins would play every home game there for the next thirty-six years, through the 1996 season.

The stadium, the experience, the emotion, the home field advantage all became part of the culture of the nation's capital. Redskins fans over a certain age (40? 35?) get wistful just at the mention of RFK.

Now, it has been fifteen years since the Redskins played at RFK. Fifteen long seasons in Jack Kent Cooke Stadium, later known as Redskins Stadium, now known as FedEx Field. None of it is the same, nothing in that stadium captures anything of the experience of RFK.

I worry that Washington and Redskins fans at large are losing this part of our history. Why do I worry?

Because this milestone went largely unnoticed. Last week, Tom Boswell of the Washington Post wrote a column on the occasion, it was mostly a misty eyed revisitation of his youth, the early days of RFK and what it meant to have that thing in your neighborhood. A colleague told me Andy Pollin and Steve Czaban and Thom Loverro discussed the occasion on The Sports Reporters on ESPravda 980 this week, wondering aloud if RFK was not drifting out of memory and into lore.

It should not. I will not be letting this moment pass without giving RFK Stadium its proper due. All through the Redskins bye week, we will be running a special eight part series on the history of RFK Stadium, how it came to pass, how it was almost taken from us, and how the Redskins became forever intertwined with the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.

Starting tomorrow. Only on Curly R.



RFK Stadium: Dudley Brooks / Washington Post photo from here via here.

Sheep Go to Heaven

Goats go to Cleveland

Someone had to go in Baltimore, after the Ravens defense gave up a long drive and score to seal the Steelers win over the Ravens in the AFC Division playoff round, after receivers Derrick Mason and TJ Housmandzadeh both dropped passes in the final moments, Ravens team leadership huddled up and... decided to fire the quarterbacks coach.

That would of course mean former Redskins head coach Jim Zorn is once again out of a job.

As the firing became news over the past two days there have been two distinctly different threads on why it had to happen, both originating from the Baltimore Sun's Ravens Insider blog. One thread says they were unhappy with coach Zorn's self-admittedly unorthodox teaching methods.

And it is true, coach Zorn approaches the job of coaching quarterbacks truly from the inside, as a former NFL QB that achieved a measure of success under difficult circumstances in Seattle, coach Zorn is projecting himself and his experience onto his students, there is very little out of the Standard Coaching Manual in coach Zorn's approach. Think about it:

The slip and slide (with video), the pad drill (photo), flying yoga balls, get smaller in the pocket not larger, slow down time, if you do not buy into coach Zorn's methods he probably seems pretty corny.

Now look at his success in Washington. In 2007, Jason Campbell's third pro season, his first full season as Redskins starting quarterback and his second year with Bill Lazor as quarterbacks coach, Jason threw eleven interceptions and fumbled thirteen times in thirteen starts, twelve full games. Jason was pretty widely considered at that point a questionable decision maker in the pocket, toss in ball security problems and you have a recipe for a short term NFL starter.

Jim Zorn arrives in 2008 after a long and drawn out selection process, and amidst the optimism of a 6-2 start is another bit of good news: Jason Campbell has shown remarkable improvement as a quarterback in just one year. Take a look at a couple of things from Jason's final 2008 numbers:

• No interceptions in the first six games, a 2008 total of six in sixteen games, Jason cut his per game rate of interceptions from 0.9 in 2007 to 0.4 in 2008, a year over year drop of 55%.

• Seven fumbles in sixteen games, down from thirteen in thirteen starts, a per game rate drop from 1.0 per game to 0.4 per game, nearly a 60% drop.
  

I did at the time and still do attribute this improvement directly to the tutelage of Jim Zorn, professional development from which Oakland is now benefiting, with their perennial commitment to a downfield passing game, Jason Campbell will be a good fit there.

Now let us look at coach Zorn's time with Baltimore. In 2009 Joe Flacco was in his second year and already a two time playoff quarterback, and while I will argue Joe benefited from Jim Zorn's coaching, we can agree Joe maybe had less headroom for improvement. In 2010 Joe continued his progression as a professional, his passer rating went up along with his touchdown passes, his interceptions went down and he only fumbled once more than in all of 2009.

Was this all due to Jim Zorn? Not necessarily, maybe not even likely, just looking at it though, at minimum coach Zorn held serve and did not allow his pupil to regress, and at best he contributed materially to Joe Flacco's maturity.

You have to ask yourself, does it matter what are the methods if the Sunday finished product sells?


The other thread in the firings story is that the Raven organization, presumably specifically head coach John Harbaugh, was worried about coach Zorn being or becoming quote insubordinate unquote. Insubordination of course is a serious accusation, it means the person in question cannot or will not follow orders or has his own agenda at the expense of the team's or team leadership. Not a team player is the kind of thing you say about someone when you to damage their standing in their profession as they head out the door.

Here in Washington, Jim Zorn was anything but insubordinate. In fact he went much too far in order to keep his job and please his bosses: Acquiesce to consultants, relinquish playcalling authority, basically submit to all ownership demands because they brought a lawyer into the room and said you have to.

As Tony Almeida pointed out last night, the philosophy and insubordination issues may well be one and the same, one story creating team cover for the other. John Harbaugh and offensive coordinator Cam Cameron may have cornered coach Zorn and said basically, come on dude, get with the program, we do not want to be known as the team that throws yoga balls around and calls it practice.


The coalescing conventional wisdom in all this appears to be that offensive coordinator Cam Cameron, himself a former Redskins quarterbacks coach under Norval Turner, and quarterback coach Jim Zorn were not compatible, perhaps it is a personality matter, perhaps it is a legitimate
difference of philosophy, Cam comes from the Don Coryell slash Joe Gibbs slash Norval Turner coaching tree while Jim Zorn is straight Bill Walsh slash George Seifert slash Mike Holmgren west coast offense.

Whatever it was, the end result is Cam Cameron has more authority over the Ravens offense and Jim Zorn is out of a job.

And Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco is not happy about it. According to the Baltimore Sun, Joe met with owner Steve Bisciotti and coach Harbaugh and advocated for Jim Zorn, lauding his teacher for what coach Zorn had done to help Joe with his game, and left the meeting thinking the team would retain Jim Zorn next season.

They did not and have now opened a legitimate rift in the team, Joe wondering aloud if the starting quarterback's opinion matters for anything. I guess it is a good thing for the Ravens that this happened in January and not July, still plenty of time for it to blow over, and Joe Flacco is a professional.


As for Jim Zorn, stories are already emerging that he will wind up as Pat Shurmur's offensive coordinator or quarterbacks coach in Cleveland, reuniting Jim Zorn with Mike Holmgren, the man that passed him over as Seahawks coach of the future in favor of Jim Mora, who by the way was fired after one season.

Good luck on your next endeavor coach Zorn, I wish things had turned out differently for you in Washington.



Jim Zorn: AP Photo from here.

You Stay Classy Brandon Lloyd

Back at you dude

Thanks to lifetime Eagles fan, season ticket holder and Curly R reader/lurker Wilbert Montgomery for the tip: As current Broncos and former Redskins receiver Brandon Lloyd heads off to the Pro Bowl, his team's lone representative, he has a message for his three old clubs, the 49ers, Redskins and Bears:

Fuck you.

Gee who could ever have seen that coming.



Brandon Lloyd: Getty Images from here.

GOD DAMMIT

Was it us?

Do you have any idea how fucking pissed off I am? Check that stat line in the image above, that is Brandon Lloyd, Broncos receiver, leading the league in receiving yards with 1046 yards in ten games, TEN GAMES THE DUDE HAS CAUGHT 54 PASSES FOR ALMOST A TWENTY YARD AVERAGE IN TEN FREAKING GAMES!


Brandon was traded to Washington from San Francisco in the 2006 offseason on the first day of free agency, the Redskins gave up two picks, a 2006 third round pick and a 2007 fourth rounder, to acquire Brandon, then turned around and gave him a seven year, 31 million dollar contract with ten million guaranteed. He was supposed to bolster a 2005 receiving corps that principally consisted of Santana Moss, Chris Cooley and Clinton Portis. Antwaan Randle El also arrived that offseason as a free agent, the Redskins had their bunch of sparkplug wideouts, no one over six feet tall.

I knew what Brandon could do, I had followed him in San Francisco and even seen him in person in the Redskins 52-17 circus in 2005, I was all about this signing, my recidivist take on Washington pushing TWO MORE Santana Moss clones in favor of pursuing a receiver free agent with size, height or physical credentials was simple: If Mark Brunell wants little guys that can get separation, who am I to disagree?

Pretty quickly though it got rough, the early returns on Brandon were indicative of how he would perform overall in his two troubled seasons in Washington. Through a miserable 2006 season that saw Mark Brunell give way to Jason Campbell at quarterback and the team win only five games, Brandon caught 23 passes for 365 yards in fifteen games, barely third receiver quality numbers, Brandon was supposed to be a solid number two that could push the number one.

In game seven that season against the Colts Brandon argued with Antwaan Randle El, the two had to be separated. Brandon did it again in game twelve against the Falcons, throwing his helmet on the field in the fourth quarter, earning the Redskins a fifteen yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. This second egregious loss of control earned Brandon a closed door sit down with head coach Joe Gibbs who you remember was supposed to be the guy ultimately behind the Redskins player acquisition decisions.

Brandon's reaction to being singled out on the team and in the media for detrimental behavior, and of being hauled behind closed doors for a verbal whipping by a Hall of Fame head coach? Not so much.

Still, coach Gibbs said he was satisfied with the outcome of the meeting and indicated Brandon would play in game thirteen against the Eagles, Brandon did not start and had one catch, off an option pass from Antwaan Randle El.

Three games later coach Gibbs had had enough, Brandon was inactive for the season finale against the Giants, the injury report indicated Brandon had bronchitis, no one believed it, Brandon's first season in a contract with ten million dollars guaranteed was a disaster.


Heading into 2007 it was not feasible to cut Brandon, Joe Gibbs and the team clearly was going to give Brandon another shot.

It did not start well. After bragging about how the 2007 offseason was the first time he had ever engaged in significant offseason workouts, Brandon gave himself shin splints and was unable to practice at full speed for the first three weeks THREE WEEKS of training camp. Still, he made the 2007 team.

And things did not get any better for Brandon. Two weeks into the season he did not have a catch. In the third week, Redskins fans were treated to one of the all time great displays of tone deafness, Brandon was featured in the Washington Post Business section as a compensated spokesman for Microsoft and their upcoming video game Halo III. In the article, Brandon named all the free gear and the advance look at the game experience the number one perk he had ever received as an NFL player, and then went on to talk about what a huge part of his life playing video games is. It would still be two more weeks, into October until Brandon got his first catch in 2007.

In November Brandon missed a team meeting and was barred from accompanying the team on the road to game eight against the Jets, and once again Joe Gibbs insisted Brandon was still important to the team and viable as a receiving option. Little did we know at that time that with seven games still left in the 2007 season that Brandon had already produced everything he would produce: two catches for fourteen yards.

One more game and no more catches later, on the last play of practice on Wednesday 14 November 2007, Brandon broke his collarbone, the team put him on injured reserve, ending a season that never really happened for Brandon. In all he missed nine games between healthy scratch, bronchitis and the clavicle injury, and produced 25 catches for 378 yards and no touchdowns. In February of 2008 the team cut Brandon, two years into thirty million dollar contract with ten million dollars guaranteed. Washington barely noticed.

Brandon played with Chicago in 2008, holding close to Washington form with 26 catches for 364 yards in eleven games. In 2009 he signed with Denver and produced only eight catches in two games.

Coming into 2010 no one expected Brandon Lloyd to do what he is doing now, Josh McDaniel has Brandon and quarterback Kyle Orton really working on the same page, Brandon has already set a career number for catches, with six games still remaining in the schedule, and is nearly four yards per catch ahead of his highest yards per catch season ever.

Something has happened, hell has frozen over, Brandon Lloyd has turned into a franchise receiver. I'm pretty pissed about it.



Image screencap detail of this page.

Twenty-five Years Ago

Their paths diverged from here

Thursday night was an important night for former Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann. It was his second game as color analyst for the NFL Network's Thursday games, Joe had been out of the game game since getting shitcanned by ESPN after the 2006 season in favor of Ron Jaworski on Monday Night Football. Up to that moment Joe Theismann had been a color commentator for NFL games dating back to 1988, an eighteen year streak that ESPN had to end because Tony Kornheiser is a whiny brat that does not get along with anybody and whom the network mistakenly thought was carrying the broadcast.

How ESPN later canned Tony for another football guy in Jon Gruden tells you all you need to know about how wrong the network was to stick with that loser for so long.

Frankly though Ron and Jon does not work for me either, it is one hardcore football mind in that booth too many and with Jon trying to keep his options open for another coaching gig someday the posturing by that guy in the booth is enough to make me sugar vomit.

But I digress, that is not really the point, nor is Joe Theismann getting back in the booth for live games really the occasion of importance in Joe's life.

Twenty-five years ago Thursday night, 18 November 1985, was the night Lawrence Taylor broke Joe Theismann's leg live on Monday Night Football in one of the most gruesome career ending injuries that has ever been witnessed in football.

Joe's football career was ended that night, Lawrence went on to make the Pro Bowl that season, and every year for the next five seasons, he would win two Super Bowls, be named to the NFL's 75th Anniversary Team and to the NFL 1980s All-Decade Team. A first ballot Hall of Famer, Lawrence's number is one of only eleven retired by the Giants, a team that has been in existence since 1925.

Three years after his injury, Joe Theismann resumed his football career in broadcasting, becoming ubiquitous in the sport for better or for worse. Lawrence Taylor turned to partying and drugs and a hard lifestyle, while a player he tested positive twice for cocaine, legend has it only the threat of a lifetime ban for a third positive forced him to quit.

After retiring he did lots of drugs and became the shady character that goes with the lifestyle, he was arrested twice for trying to buy from undercover officers and went through rehab at least twice in the 1990s. He lost lots of money in bad investments and became a caricature of himself in pop culture. Last year he was arrested for leaving the scene of an accident then this year it got worse, he was arrested for statutory rape of a sixteen year old admitted prostitute, he is facing trial on these charges. In a sign times are tough for Lawrence, he went to court, or rather technically did not go to court, to try and get child support payments for his twelve year old daughter by his first wife reduced.

Kind of seems like Joe Theismann got the better of that whole deal from 1985. Not judging, just saying.



The immediate aftermath of Lawrence Taylor's career ending hit on Joe Theismann: George Gojkovich / Getty Images from here.

It's Back

I never forgot you

Back in the summer of 1991 when I was supposed to have finished college, my father, the original Redskins fan named Ben Folsom, gave me a Redskins rocking chair, it was in sincerity the only thing to which I was truly attached in that period of life when everything you own will fit into a Ford Escort.

This piece of Redskins paraphernalia accompanied me through two residences in Charlottesville Virginia, waited patiently for me three years while I toured the nation as a rock band sound engineer, moved back into my parents' house with me for a while then came with me to Arlington Virginia for three moves before accompanying me to my current residence in Alexandria.

It is unequivocally the most comfortable piece of furniture I have ever sat on to watch football or play video games, the Redskins rocker got me through many 3:00 am games of Madden 92, 93, 94 and 95 and every Redskins game for more than a decade.

The Redskins rocker finally failed me in January 2006. A week after the surgical strike on Tampa, when a high school friend and I were part of the rowdy Redskins contingent that used a compromised password to buy club seats at Buccaneers Stadium reserved for existing Tampa Bay season ticket holders, we flew in, partied hard, saw the Redskins win a tough game 17-10 with no Santana Moss, no offense and Sean Taylor ejected for spitting on Michael Pittman and flew back all in twenty-two hours, the Redskins were playing the Seattle Seahawks in the Divisional playoff round.

Well we all know the Redskins lost that game and in addition to the 2005 season, a collateral casualty of that game was my beloved Redskins chair, the upper vertical support came away from the rear riser, the screw broke clean off in the seat.

Well life and other things conspired to separate me from my rocker and for the last four years it has sat in the shed or in the back of the pantry, closed in and obscured by the rag bag, paint supplies and the tie dye bucket.

I always knew it was an easy fix, let me tell you folks I am that lazy, I abandoned the one piece of Redskins gear to which I was most bonded as an adult Redskins fan, I do not know how it happened, in retrospect I suppose the number 89 Santana Moss jersey I bought specifically to wear to that Tampa Bay playoff game, I had never owned a team jersey of any type before that game in my life, became my new Redskins avatar and I let the chair go like a kid growing out of an old toy, once the favorite and now too familiar.

My wife, a football fan herself with a clear understanding of what that chair meant to me, gave me a year to fix it, then began pleading for me to let it go and move on, there would be other rockers, other opportunities to associate my direct physical comfort with the football team that has been the only one I cared about my entire life. I filibustered and it was stashed.

Two weeks ago, when our three kids, ages eight, eight and three, were away in Fredericksburg at Camp Wilbert Montgomery, an annual affair that will reverse in two weeks when lifetime Eagles fan, season ticket holder and Curly R reader/lurker Wilbert Montgomery's two kids come to stay with us for a week, we did what every married couple with young kids does when their children are out of town... CLEAN LIKE BUNNIES (hey, what did you think I was going to say?)

We re-orged the pantry from bottom to top and I found the chair. Tonight, with the wife out having fun with her friends and after all the kids were out, I finally did what I should have done four years ago: I fixed the damn thing.

In the end, it took five minutes, I drilled a pilot hole above the existing slot, the one with half the screw still in it, then sank a wood screw in and voila, my Redskins rocker is back. I sit in it as I write this post. It is Curly R's new home and my old one.

It is funny how things work, I can get motivated to raise a family, get to work every day, have a social life and find the time to publish nearly 1300 pieces on my little blog, I could never take five minutes to fix my Redskins rocker. Now it is like I am home again.



Photos by me.

Donovan's Not Mark Rypien, and Jason Was Not Jeff George - Part Two

OMG HE'S LIEK GENERAL PATTON

Donovan McNabb is in town, this is really actually happening, and 2010 training camp starts today. This is a time for Redskins fans to rejoice every year, and this season there may be a team for us to be proud of no matter the record. Win or lose, Redskins fans never forget. Curly R's two part series on Donovan McNabb and Redskins history concludes.

Part One: More Than One Way to Lead
Part Two: Compared to What

=====

In a Washington Examiner piece by longtime Redskins writer Rick Snider, Rick writes about a new quarterback leadership in town with the arrival of Donovan McNabb, a type of leadership Jason Campbell was incapable of demonstrating, that Clinton Portis' criticism of Jason was unfortunate but inevitable in the face of Jason's resolute stay medium approach to the game.

Then it gets even more jumbled in Rick's piece, he trots out Mark Rypien, and also revives the ghost of Jeff George, even if Rick's intentions were not direct, the effect of the second half of his Examiner piece is to draw the parallel between Donovan McNabb and Mark Rypien, and another between Jason Campbell and Jeff George. I think as an exercise in tugging the emotions this works, as a series of football analogies it does not.

Rick writes,

Mark Rypien was a decent quarterback with a great team around him. He led the Redskins to the 1991 championship and was named Super Bowl MVP because teammates knew Rypien could win late.

Jeff George was a much better passer than Rypien -- not even close skills-wise. But teammates hated George so much in 2000 that no one came to his defense when he was dragged by the Dallas Cowboys after a sack. His linemen saw it and didn't care. If that happened to Rypien, the game would have been delayed 20 minutes for fighting and the entire offensive line would have been ejected. (op. cit.)

That Redskins team, the 1991 team, was built to play with a lead and had a defense designed to force opposing quarterbacks into bad decisions, such as the 3 November 1991 game against the Oilers that the Redskins surely would have lost without Darrell Green's late interception of Warren Moon. Most of them though were big Redskins wins.

More typical of Mark Rypien's performance in a tight spot was the Redskins second playoff game in 1992, the Redskins had backed into the playoffs at 9-7 and beaten the Redskins lookalike Minnesota Vikings and headed to San Francisco. Mark threw a critical interception and botched a handoff to Brian Mitchell late in the game, it all came down to Washington needing a touchdown to tie, first and eighty from the Redskins 20 with ninety seconds left in the game. Washington spent forty seconds going twenty yards then it was fourth down and the game was over before the Redskins even crossed midfield. Why? How?

Because Mark Rypien was not a stretch leader and the Redskins were not known for their two minute offense, this Redskins team had never really had one. A no huddle offense designed to tire out the defense and keep the clock running, yes. A quick strike two minute offense with well oiled plays designed to play against opposing weaknesses, no.

So when you say Mark Rypien's teammates knew he could win the game late, what you really mean is that the defense kept the Redskins in tight games late and the offense was out there hoping to hit a long one or make something happen. Hardly the stuff of legends, working the huddle, sacrificing the body and playing sandlot ball for two minutes. That was not Mark's game.

As for the Jeff George reference, if I take that at face value then Rick is comparing the time Jeff was sacked and dragged fifteen yards downfield by Dallas defensive tackle Alonzo Spellman in December of 2000, no Redskins players came to his aid and the game continued, to the time Clinton Portis broke bad on Jason Campbell in a radio interview. And there are some similarities.

First though it is a bad analogy simply because it draws a parallel between a game situation and a non game situation, and a friendly fire scenario at that.

Beyond that though, in 2000, Norval Turner had been fired, receivers coach Terry Robiskie had been named lame duck interim coach, the team was falling apart and morale was at a low point. In 2009, the team had fallen apart, head coach Jim Zorn had been fired before the team plane had landed following game sixteen and in the disarray of a terrible season and abject lack of leadership, the remains of the team was at a morale low point.

And that is where the comparison ends. Jeff George was a prima donna player and a locker room cancer. The very definition of a jock asshole Jeff was foisted on the team by owner Dan Snyder who just wanted to watch that cannon release. Never mind that the guy blamed every bad read and interception on the receivers and treated his teammates like assholes.

Jason Campbell on the other hand got knocked to the ground dozens of times in 2009 and every time, many times in visible pain, got up and got back to work. If there was ever a time for a player to get bitter at a team simply unable to protect their quarterback it was Jason last season.

And yet he did not, he did his job and he was not the reason for the Redskins failure.

Neither comparison is valid an inch below the surface.

I do not think I am ready to throw analogies out there for either player.


Do not take it personally Rick, your insight into Donovan McNabb's leadership qualities are spot on. And comparatively speaking you are also right about Jason Campbell, it is not in his nature to dominate his teammates, Jason has a simple philosophy that motivation should come from inside, he has it and if you do not, he cannot give it to you so you better find it or GTFO.

Jason was not the problem in recent years and an analysis of Jason's performance in isolation will show he did his job and he improved every year. If Donovan brings success to this team it will be because the Redskins are playing like a team and not a bunch of guys that are either scared for their jobs or getting paid and don't give a shit. And that will be the difference, Dono will just be a symptom.



Donovan McNabb: Detail of photo from the ORB (Official Redskins Blog) here.

Donovan's Not Mark Rypien, and Jason Was Not Jeff George - Part One

Let's keep it all in perspective people

As Redskins fans count down the final hours before the opening of 2010 NFL training camp, it seems appropriate to start a conversation now about what we should regard as the future history of this team, not just how the team did, how they did against what we thought they could and should achieve. Curly R's two part series on Donovan McNabb and Redskins history begins today.

Part One: More Than One Way to Lead
Part Two: Tomorrow

=====

How will the 2010 Washington Redskins be remembered in January 2011 and beyond? Will the realities of a sixteen game season bear out success or will Redskinsland realize optimism and the tantilizing possibility of a long term relationship with real football management made the collective think we could score a Super Bowl on the first date?

And even with Mike Shanahan at head coach and a new real actual general manager in Bruce Allen, is there a better example of an expectations rod than quarterback Donovan McNabb? Former rival, made the Redskins pay for years and years, all the guy ever wanted to do was win and stay in Philadelphia for his entire career and they would not let him, and now that he is out the door they are trashing him, it would seem Dono was best at hitting only open receivers and when he did make things happen it was not often out of the base offense. Oh to have such problems.

So Dono comes to Washington with all that experience and all that success and... what?

Is he immediately in the same class with Sonny Jurgenson and Slinging Sammy Baugh? Anyone? No?

How about Joe Theismann or Doug Williams? Any takers there?

One writer is already putting him in the class with Mark Rypien, quarterback and MVP of Super Bowl 26, the Redskins last real stab at glory. Fellow and professional writer Rick Snider wrote last week in the Washington Examiner about Donovan's natural leadership ability and how teammates are already flocking to it, with players agreeing to travel to Arizona to train with Donovan before camp.

This is not inconsequential a matter, as you will remember that the Redskins are the team famous for players that train on their own. From I Don't Know What You Did Last Summer where we discuss the shock SHOCK Joe Gibbs displayed when players did not show up for May 2007 minicamp after he agreed to let players train away from Ashburn, to two earlier Curly R pieces in February 2007 digging into that decision, Irregardless, Bad looking at it from the lens of Stan Humphries' ejection in the 1992 offseason and Revelations 53 breaking down coach Gibbs' philosophy that winning begets winning until the players call the shots, there is a rich and recent history of players not really working out with the team or much together in the offseason, so players agreeing to spend time with Donovan, away from home and in one of their last two weeks of freedom before the six month season begins, that is a big story.

What it is not is in any way an indication that former Redskins quarterback Jason Campbell was not competent enough to run an NFL offense. Rick illustrates Dono's halo effect by reminding us that Jason was good, just not an inspirational leader, and that Clinton Portis' radio interview trashing of Jason in January was really just the conscience of the team coming out.

That is total bullshit, and Rick even gets that, the top of the next paragraph in his piece reminds us that Jason had virtually no pass blocking in 2008 and 2009. The issue then seems to be that Jason's style is not of a particular type.

And while it is true that all teams need leaders, by definition the quarterback spot does not need to supply one hundred percent of that leadership. Tiki Barber mocked Eli Manning's attempt at taking charge in the huddle in 2007, by 2008 Eli was hoisting the Super Bowl trophy and no one will evar call Eli Manning a steely eyed leader of men under fire.

Ray Lewis was clearly the leader of the 2001 Ravens, quarterback Trent Dilfer ran an offense that did not score a touchdown in the month of October. Brad Johnson was not leadery enough to stick with the Redskins past 2000, by 2003 he was winning a Super Bowl on a team where Derrick Brooks and Warren Sapp were the undisputed stars and leaders.

So I reject categorically the notion that Jason Campbell's personal style rendered him incapable of doing his part to win the Redskins a Super Bowl. When you have Jason Campbell on the field you are going to get an increasingly predictable performance, around which you can build a team. And the Redskins never really tried to do that. Peyton Manning, Jason will never be, neither will be ever be Jay Cutler.

If you want to examine the exact places where the Redskins needed leadership the past two years, look no further than Clinton Portis himself, that prima donna should throw fewer stones, look at the left tackle Chris Samuels, played his body into retirement, for a real leader only London Fletcher fit the suit.

Above all look at the shackles placed on the team by the horrendous performance of management: playing favorites with players, emasculating the coach, bringing in strangers and giving them total control of the offense on Sundays. The original Joe Gibbs would roll over in his football grave if he knew.

You think hard on what happened the past three seasons in Washington and tell me if Jason Campbell's lack of leadership was really the team's biggest problem. Or if it was even top five.


Donovan's Not Mark Rypien and Jason Was Not Jeff George concludes tomorrow with part two, Compared to What.



Donovan McNabb: Detail of photo from the ORB (Official Redskins Blog) here.

Your Redskins Connection to Last Night's Record Setting Playoff Game

Barn burner

Last night we witnessed the highest scoring postseason game in NFL history as the Cardinals held off the Packers in Arizona 51-45, the total of 96 points surpasses the total of 95 in the Eagles 58-37 victory over the Lions on 30 December 1995.

After putting my two year old to bed I headed over to neighbor Bill's to watch the end of the game, I arrived at his house with about twelve minutes remaining in regulation... and still witnessed another four touchdowns. It was truly amazing... unless you are Green Bay defensive coordinator Dom Capers or Arizona defensive coordinator Billy Davis.

There is a Redskins connection to this game. Although this game was the highest scoring game in NFL postseason history, it was not the highest scoring game in NFL history, in fact it was not even in the top four.

No, the highest scoring game in NFL history was won by your Washington Redskins, 72-41 over the New York Giants on 27 November 1966, a total of 113 points, the game was played in DC Stadium, the venue later to be known as RKF Stadium.

Sonny Jurgenson was a modest 10 for 16 for 145 yards and three touchdowns, future Hall of Famer Charley Taylor caught six of those passes for 124 yards and two touchdowns, future Hall of Famer Bobby Mitchell had two carries for 54 yards and a touchdown, rookie safety and future Redskins Ring of Famer Brig Owens had two defensive touchdowns, a 62 yard fumble recovery and a 60 yard interception return.

Those 1966 Redskins ended the season 7-7 and last in the NFL East, it was the closest the Redskins had come to a winning season in eleven years, they would have to wait another three seasons to experience a winning record, when Vince Lombardi came to town.



Sonny Jurgenson: from here via here.

When Marty Fired Vinny

Those could have been the days

It surprises no one that former head coach Marty Schottenheimer still has an axe to grind with Redskins management, after all he was brought in by owner Dan Snyder just a month after publicly castigating Dan on ESPN live TV, Dan was clearly trying to do the right thing and bring in someone with volumes of football knowledge and some indepdenence in order to build and manage the team.

As a young and headstrong owner that thought he knew a lot about football it must have been a tough hire. He gave Marty a four year deal and total control of the organization (op. cit.). Marty's first order of business was to fire, or in team parlance upon separation last year with Gregg Williams and Al Saunders, release Vinny Cerrato, things went down hill from there, control became an issue, the team had a rough start, there were was locker room unrest and without his Cerrato security blanket Dan Snyder was unable to cope with someone else in charge.

Ultimately we all know how it ended, Dan fell off the do the right thing and honor the traditions of Redskins football wagon, and hard, going on a two year bender with Steve Spurrier before hiring Joe Gibbs, who was more like a breath mint than a sponsor if I can extend the alcoholism metaphor one step too far.

Now just because Marty still smarts from his time in Washington does not mean he does not speak truth or honesty from experience. Dan Dan the Sports Bog Man heard Marty yesterday on Sirius NFL Radio, ostensibly discussing the notion that Dan Snyder accompanied shadow general manager Vinny Cerrato personally to scout University of Texas quarterback Colt McCoy, the MacGuffin is Marty's comment on the quality of that scouting trip, the meat on the bone is what he said about Vinny:

"I've said for a long time, in my opinion the problem down there--obviously it starts at the top with Dan--but [the problem] is Cerrato," Schottenheimer said Thursday. "I don't particularly respect the guy. He and I had our issues when we were there. Basically what he said was, 'Marty, Dan may be listening to you during the preseason,' he says. 'But wait until I get up in the owner's box during the regular season, and then we'll see who Dan listens to.'

"Now how's that? How's that? And of course, he was gone within the week but re-hired shortly after I departed. So now, Dan, he's made his choice [some] time ago, but I'm not a big fan of Cerrato and his work."

Emphasis added by Dan Steinberg, seconded by me. Let us get into the Wayback Machine to 2001, so the guy Vinny, who is clearly uncomfortable with Marty's presence, confidence and decision making, does not even wait two weeks to poison the well between himself and the new head coach, to tell him you may be the ball date but I'll be the one shagging him in the kitchen. How do we know two weeks? Because Marty himself said Vinny was gone less than a week after that encounter, fired by Marty less than three weeks after becoming head coach and president of football operations (op. cit.).

A lesser man may have been intimidated by Vinny, Marty was armed with decades of experience in a difficult profession and an iron clad contract, he did not give a shit about what Vinny Cerrato had to say.

Curly R has been preaching for years that Vinny Cerrato is the ultimate enabler of the wasteland that is now the Redskins franchise, after hearing firsthand from Marty Schottenheimer how Vinny plays, how he will stop at nothing to retain his seat at the table, even to the point of undermining the team itself, he will tell Dan Snyder anything he wants to hear, will justify any bad decision and will stab in the back anyone in his way. He is the ultimate sycophantic courtier.

No matter what happens in this or any offseason, as long as he is in place to be Dan Snyder's echo chamber, the negative feedback loop of decision making that has ruined this team will continue.


Curly R has written extensively about Marty Schottenheimer, here, here and especially here.



Redskins coach Marty Schottenheimer: John McDonnell / Washington Post from here via here.